Game Time - Cadians Vs Baran Siege - Hordeoff

Game Time - Cadians Vs Baran Siege - Hordeoff

Games club Sunday so I thought it might be a good opportunity to test out one of the builds I was thinking for Cancon 2017, Baran Siegemasters. 

Here's my build - 

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Baran Siege Masters (NetEA Tournament Pack 2014)
================================================== 

REGIMENTAL HQ [325]
Supreme Commander, 9 Siege Infantry, Thudd Gun Platoon (3 Guns), Sniper unit

INFANTRY COMPANY [225]
Commander, 9 Siege Infantry, Griffon Battery (3 Griffons)

INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
Commander, 9 Siege Infantry

INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
Commander, 9 Siege Infantry

INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
Commander, 9 Siege Infantry

ARTILLERY BATTERY [150]
3 Götterdämmerung Howitzers, 3 Bruenhilde

ARTILLERY BATTERY [150]
3 Götterdämmerung Howitzers, 3 Bruenhilde

FLAK BATTERY [100]
3 Blitzen AA Guns, Gun Emplacements

HEAVY TANK PLATOON [300]
6 Ragnarok Heavy Tanks

HEAVY TANK PLATOON [300]
6 Ragnarok Heavy Tanks

SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword

SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword

LIGHT TANK PLATOON [150]
6 Siegfried Light Tanks

LIGHT TANK PLATOON [150]
6 Siegfried Light Tanks

LIGHT TANK PLATOON [150]
6 Siegfried Light Tanks

FORTIFIED POSITION [75]
Up to 50cm trenches, 50cm razor wire, plus 6 Gun Emplacements.

The basic plan is to hold ground and use the arty and shadowswords to pick off support formations while the troopers, ragnaroks and scout tanks advance forwards to tackle engagements and take ground. 

*note* white paper represents a set of trenches and gun emplacements this game because I forgot mine... not that they get used anyway for the most part.


My opponent today would be John running Cadian's, bringing us to a total of 31 activations on the board today... 

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Cadian Shock Troopers (NetEA v1.5 *DEVELOPMENT*)
================================================== 

CADIAN REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS [625]
1 Imperial Guard Supreme Commander unit, 7 Kasrkin units and 1 Leviathan Mobile Command Centre, Sabre Platforms (3 Sabre Platforms), Commissar, Sanctioned Psykers (1 Sanctioned Psyker unit)

KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [225]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units, Sabre Platforms (3 Sabre Platforms)

KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units

KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units

KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units

HELLHOUND PLATOON [250]
6 Hellhounds, Commissar

SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword

SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword

DEATHSTRIKE BATTERY [200]
2 Deathstrike Missile Launchers

ARTILLERY BATTERY [250]
3 Manticores

FLAK BATTERY [150]
3 hydras

SENTINEL SQUADRON [125]
6 Cadian Sentinels

SENTINEL SQUADRON [125]
6 Cadian Sentinels

SENTINEL SQUADRON [125]
6 Cadian Sentinels
Setup 
One big problem we both encountered was the pure scale of our armies needing every inch of space to deploy, especially with plenty of blast templates in each army. Cadians solved this problem by garrisoning a chunk of their forces into forward positions. Baran solved it by standing on each others shoulders and generally just filling up the whole deployment zone. 



  
Here the Baran Centre with BTS and Blitz      Here the Baran Left flank with entrenchments

Turn 1
Cadians win initiative.

Manticores fail initiative twice lol
Baran artillery is better trained and manages to fire and kill a deastrike and break them.
Come cadian sentinels advance but this was a background to the shadwosword duel as the baran shadowsword advances to alphastike the cadian equivalent. Baran missed, cadians didn't. Booo

More sentinels came under fire as we both looked for small activations to take out. Baran artillery just wasn't doing the job so far though. 2 hits off 6 models in the sentinel unit just isn't doing the job.

Positioning war continues through the middle of the turn as both sides advance to grab the scattered terrain options.

My shadowsword manages to break its opponent but I was still losing the big war engine duel.

The right flank heated up (literally) towards the end of the turn as the hellhounds doubled up and burned the baran infantry out of the forest (photo). I attempted to respond using a ragnarok tanks and an engage with the scouts but sadly the ragnarok hits all bounced and the scout tanks were overcome by the superior cadian FF values, denying the ragnarok supporting fire. Right flank looking bad.

  

Hellhounds are rough... 6 kills with flame, 2 with heavy bolters... full unit of Baran gone! 

Rally phase. Everything except for the crispy baran infantry survivors and the cadian deathstrikes rally so turn 2 is going to be huge

      

Baran Left, Centre and what's left of the right flank

Turn 2
Cadians win again and fire the manticores. They failed to activate again but the sup com got them in line with threats or promises. Probably threats. They make themselves known dropping onto the baran BTS and killing a few but putting 9 blasties down whilst also suppressing all the guns In the central artillery unit.

Cadian shadowsword ends the duel definitively with my shadowsword blowing up spectacularly.

My attempt to revenge myself on the hellhounds ended poorly with the ragnaroks again not managing to kill a single flame tank and the scout tanks being wiped out by 3 hellhounds in FF. The right flank is now basically a write off. Bugger. Let's focus on the centre.

Actually I decide the next side will be the left where I picked off some karskin sitting in  ruins and follow up with a clipping assault with scout tanks... yeah that didn't work so well.

Cadians decide to fight in the centre with hydras prepping the baran infantry in the ruins killing 3 despite the ruins. The surviving infantry put a blast marker on the sentinels behind the statue to make an engagement more tricky for them.

The left flank begins to crumble as first karskin and then sentinels engage and push my baran infantry out of their forward positions. Ragnarok tanks responded by pushing out the sentinels but I couldn't wipe them out because they had a commissar.

In the centre the command leviathan grinds forwards forewards and melts a ragnarok on my left flank. Whilst my scout tanks managed to engage a unit of hydras off the board, truly the stuff of legends. Sadly it wasn't to last as the scout tanks were melted shortly afterwards by those pesky hellhounds who sustained.

The rest of the turn for baran was just trying to clear blast markers accrued earlier, though my artillery did manage to cover the entire hellhound formation with a template and actually kill one!

  

Cadians are in firm control of all the central objectives

Rally phase - Everything cadian rallied or clear blast markers, with the deathstrikes coming back in time to shoot at nothing useful next turn.

Most of the baran stuff came back too except for a unit of scout tanks but sadly both ragnarok units are engage bait carrying a single blastie each.

Turn 3
Cadians win initiate again... no surprise given they have the plus 1 start rating but it still hurts!

Cadians initiate operation mop up (photo) surrounding the Ragnaroks. And engaging with those damn hellhounds. 10 hits from hellhounds and supporting karskin sees 3 dead ragnaroks and losing combat by 8 sees off the rest of them!

  

Ragnarock? More like Ragnatissue paper

The left flank will see my ragnaroks attempting to clear some karskin out of the ruins but they lose the engage and roll a double 1 so they are wiped from the board.

The rest of the turn is fairly one sided... manticores rain blast markers down onto the baran HQ. Whilst Baran artillery takes out the manticores in return, morale victory.

Cadian command leviathan continued to roll forward this time engaging the remaining baran infantry contesting the central objective. The rest of the turn goes the same way. Cadians grind slowly forward removing everything baran that is holding an objective leaving the baran largely in their own deployment zone. 3-0 to the cadians who couldn't kill the BTS or take the Blitz.

Overall thoughts - 
Cadians are a solid list but the baran plan just didn't come together.  I knew this would be all about engagement and my theory was that the scout tank formations would be solid engage troops with FF support, it just didn't happen. They tended to melt too quickly before the support ire could make a difference. Being down on WE for that duel was also a big problem and when the cadians kept hitting home and one shotting my shadowswords it just wasn't going to happen, interestingly too the deathstrikes never even got to contribute to that.

For the cadians it was just a slow grind with a clear focus on the important objectives. They garrisoned around key points and never let them go. In the end their superior armour and solid FF options were just too much for the baran to chew through. Those hellhounds were amazing too, I've looked at them myself but never actually used them and I found them really flexible and a solid support unit for the infantry based cadians. I'd consider 2 units but they are still pricey.

Getting started with Epic Armageddon

Getting started with Epic Armageddon

The best way to keep our game alive and kicking is to build our community up and that comes down to all of us, there's no big company pushing for growth with a pile of stores anymore so what's the best way to go about it... here's my suggestion.



Step 1 - Play a game: I can't say I learnt much in my years working for GW but one thing I took away was that if you want to get anyone enthused about your game system the best way to do it is to play. Minigedddon was designed for exactly this, put together a couple of simple armies and run your friend through the basics. Sitting down with the actual rule book can come later, once they've had a couple of minigeddon games under their belt.

Grab the Epic Minigeddon Rules PDF here 

Step 2 - Make the appropriate introductions - one of the big problems with out system is that there is no official face to it anymore, Taccoms can be a pretty unhealthy place to start but there are some great FB groups around you could invite your friend too. It's also important to share contacts for getting minis, if you're serious about the game you no doubt know a range of places to get models both offical sources like onslaught and some of the backyard producers... being told to trawl for stuff on eBay at the ridiculous prices people ask for stuff that is readily available in recast/proxy is not going to enthuse your new friend. Lend them whatever they need to play and see what you can do to hook them up with their first purchase.

  

Step 3 - Show them the blog - this blog is a great place to go for new players, in the links section they will find some awesome bat reps to read through and see how the game works, in the tactics pages they will find army building advice. There's a page devoted to sourcing all the new models they could ever ask for and another one about sourcing and building tables. So this page is a really excellent source for new players.

Step 4  - Slow Grow! - everyone needs a bit of motivation to get their armies together and painted armies are so much more satisfying to play with and against than unpainted. Painting 6mm however can be a little daunting to begin with. Get together with your mate and encourage them to paint up their stuff with a subtle 1000pts a month challenge and see those minis get some colour.

  

Step 5 - more games! Maybe even a tournament or a campaign!

The final step is simple, you've got an army together go out and play some games, remember to keep it fun and casual. Quite often we hear complaints from people about how they want to use big formations/Titans but can't win with them because their opponents use hordes of activations and so forth. The simple suggestion is to recognise that this game in many ways isn't balanced, if you want it to be interesting don't always play the tournament scenario, play different points values, play different missions, there's heaps around and they will absolutely improve your gaming time.

Good luck and have fun

New Terrain Option!

Check out this awesome industrial terrain!

Personally I'm always on the lookout for cool new terrain sources and I got super excited when I saw these ones released today. Perfectly scaled, high quality and damn cheap too IMO. If you are looking for some awesome new buildings to spice up your table go and have a chat to Mike at Battlefield Accessories: 
https://battlefield-accessories.myshopify.com/collections/epic

While you are there stock up on some of his slotta bases for epic infantry! 

  

Slow Grow - Month 1 Update

Slow Grow - Month 1 Update

So it's been a month of furious painting, time to see how our crew are faring with their projects. 

Player 1 - Steve 'The D6 Addict' Gibb
This month for me was all about Daemons. Well actually that's a lie. I got too excited and finished the entire army... but I did the daemons first so let's just pretend I followed the rules! That said I've been super impressed by the quality and dedication of the guys who've volunteered for slow grow duty. There's more players on this list than in my entire local gaming scene and it's brilliant to see so much energy being poured into our system. It's also amazing to see just how much quality people can produce! I've posted up my first game with LATD as a report last month which was a seriously narrow loss... Back to the drawing board! Cancon is coming! 

  

Player 2 - Zac 'Shenanigans' Manning

Month 1 Now as I already had all of my 3000 points I didn't need to rush out and buy anything This however does not mean I rushed into painting. The modelling painting aspect of the hobby is by far my least favourite. Over the last 3 Sunday's though I did get into a bit of a groove and churn through some painting. But in typical #zacmanning style everything is 3/4 finished and I have close to 2000 points if not more at this stage.

 I managed to base coat and add details and washes to all of my wraiths and tanks. I just need to add gem colours and touch ups and they are finished. Basing however will be a while as I am waiting materials to come in stock so I can purchase. I will be going for a light grey weathers cobblestone look which should match well with the Orange and Blue.

 Now as for game play I managed two games of 3000 point proxy hammer with my list. I managed a resounding loss against John and his baron siege horde and a very close win (basically draw) against Steve and his lost and dammed (renamed to lost and dammit why can't I activate a unit) I have a lot to learn with using this army and many more games are required to gain basic mastery of the list. I am ready for the challenge and the ridicule of playing the pointy ear gits

Player 3 - John 'Girl Power' Hammond

  

  

So one month down and though I've completed my first 1k, I've not yet been able to have a game with them. Hopefully I should be able to fix that issue in the coming weeks

This month I plan to try and bulk out the army with a bit of fast moving fire support in the form of 6 immolators and increase my Penitent engine up to a formation of 6. At 2k points it's also high time to bring in the Supreme Commander so i'll be adding another full Mission formation for her to roll around in.

Aircraft and teleporters now also become an issue so I'll be introducing a formation of Lightnings and a single hunter to bump up the Exorcist unit. Dominion scouts will also be making an appearance to deter any first turn teleportation shenanigans.

Still I'm worried about how this army is going to deal with any decent amount of RA armies or titans, there's just not a lot of options in the list to deal with these threats and though it's a FF based army - also no real decent delivery system besides weathering the storm as we cross the board in our rhinos.

This should bring my Current 2k list to look like:

Mission 275
8 Battle Sister stands + Rhinos

Mission 375
8 Battle Sister stands + Supreme Commander + Rhinos

Exorcism 300
5 Exorcist Tanks + Hunter

Repentance 275
6 Repentia Sister Stands + Rhinos
Priest {50}

Penitence 245
6 Penitent Engine

Lightning 150
2 Lightning Strike Fighter aircraft

Purgeance 250
6x Immolators

Dominion (Scout) 200
4 Dominion Stands + Rhinos

Plans are also in the works to finish off my second objective marker (It's looking a bit bland with just the statue) and the addition of another larger marker for my Blitz.

Wish me luck

Player 4 - Ben 'I'm not a communist I just like red' Tranter

  

I hang my head in shame that I'm behind a little on my slow grow painting. Ended up disliking my first color scheme and having to strip and redo. Really loving the new concept of red, brass and desert bases. I'm at least able to offer for you guys photos of one completed test model from each type

Game wise I did get a 1000pt minigeddon match in against Adam's Eldar. It made me realize just how much of a beast the core admech formations are. 8 Skitarri + 2 terminators + 10 Chimedons is an awful lot of 5+ bodies to throw into a firefight. I'd even trust them up against most of the 40k core formations out there. 

Player 5: Colm "no nickname" Kiely

As you can see in the pictures, I plan to give each Knight his/her own heraldry, unified by a deep blue main colour and bare adamantine body. That is currently flat mithril silver, but it will get a generous black wash/quickshade to dull it down and make it look less clean, as well as bring out the detail.

The color scheme is based on very similar color choices on my warhound and thunderbolts in my Codex Space Marine army, so I'm confident it will look OK in the end. I need to buy a brighter yellow paint for the heraldry and lava, what I have used will be way too dull under the quickshade.

Despite the rocky start I am fairly happy with how the painting is going - I will get a nice contrast to help my Knights stand out from their bases, which in 6mm scale is really important.

Player 6: Jeff "what's a blurb? Thomson

This is a Regimental HQ with Commissar, and 3 Baneblades (one with black markings which can be used to represent the Commissar tank). These guyswere a bit rushed, and if I have time I may go back and add symbols to the Commissar Baneblade, markings to the army designation stripes (not visible in this pic) and an aerial to one Chimera (to represent the SC's Chimera).

Next month I'll be working on an Infantry Platoon, 3 Shadowswords and 3 Manticores. There's a reasonable chance I won't manage to find the time during this month, but we'll see.

Player 7 Dave "Fruitbat" Dingelstad

When I started assembling the Guard, I decided I wanted to go with something a bit different for painting from the standard Steel Legion look. Many years ago I had worked on a tank company army for 40K, using a “plasma storm” camo pattern. Unfortunately, that was two, if not three iterations of the GW paint range ago. I’d also sold off almost all the army over the years, and copies of the reference material I’d printed was long gone (as was the IG camo reference from the old GW site). All I had left was one unfinished Russ… Unwilling to take the sensible option, I dug through the paint box and managed to unearth a few pots of “near enough”, and “pretty sure this was it”. I savaged an old brush to make an Epic scale stippling tool for the plasma bursts, and I was off. Just not very quickly. Unfortunately, my chosen 1000 points is sadly lacking in detail work (and the infantry looks suspiciously like black undercoat). So I’ve got a bit of extra work ahead of me this month to complete the next 1000 before coming back to bring this lot up to speed. Not surprisingly, they haven’t had time to take to the field for some slow-grow gaming either. Maybe next month?

Player 8 Chris - "Fake Nightlords" Smith

Month 1 is done, I didn’t quite make it as I have 1 flyer left to do, just a bit more for month 2.
But I enjoyed painting Night Lords and I am happy with how the lightning showed up, I did manage 2 minigeddon games, one against Adam which was a loss and one against Kendall which ended up in a win.

Player 9 Ben "Genuine Fluffbunny" Spaulding

Well at least it's still better than Zac Manning!

Player 10 - Ben "I need a reason to paint" Wadswoorth

Tau are looking happier this month, a few new additions, a few more coats of white, and rails & exhausts powering up. Still a couple layers of highlights and basing to go, but happy so far

Player 11 - Daniel "Needs a head Start" Schmidt

So month 1 is over. I am woefully behind schedule, thanks to a mixture of work commitments. None-the-less, I got a bit done and am happy with what I have painted, so I'll post up the WIPs of the models that are underway.

  

Player 12 - Kendall "The Colombian Kingpin" Williams

  

  

1 month down and too many hours!

This first thousand have been a learning experience.

The Painting -

As you can see, the primary colour for this army is a bright orange. The lion share of the models were sprayed with Vallego model air Orange over their grey base coat - a couple coats were required. A quick wash and a highlight finished it up.
Their jump suits are stone gray with skull white highlight.
Finally the weapons were painted jade and highlighted.

The stealers and Lictors are reflection of their 2nd ed colours, unfortunately blending into their bases, but I figure if anyone had a camoflage it would be the nids who've infiltrated the hive world.

Finally the bases were base coated midnight blue with a couple highlights of severly watered down Troll Blood Flesh. A final edge highlight and a quick wash of black washalong the cracks and hey presto - a month of my life!

Gaming -

I've gotten a few games in so far with little success.

Though I've outnumbered/out activated my opponents, my army has far less resilience.

A little disappointing, but I reckon they'll be golden with their next month of additions.

November's Build -

I'll be adding a formation of baneblades, 2 formations of brood brothers and some hydra tanks

Battle Report Time - Chaos Cultists take on Iyanden

Battle Report Time - Chaos Cultists take on Iyanden

Friday night fight night rolls around again and this time It sees my inaugural run with the Lost and the Damned. I'm a huge fan of the Redux version available here on Tactical Command which has an awesome theme and collection of chaos units to back up your veritable horde of cultists. Its a much more interesting list than the currently approved NetEA variant which is basically just gaurd with some chaos symbols painted on the side.

The lists

Iyanden
Avatar – 0 Wraith Gate - 50 Wraith Guard – wraithseer – 375 Wraith Guard – 275 Wraith Blades – 225 Storm Serpent – 250 Strom serpent 250 Night Spinners – 175 Revenants – 650 Wraith ship – 150 Vampire 200 Falcons – 4 falcons 2 firestorm – 300 Rangers – 100

So 3 units of RA4+ Fearless macro toting wraiths to deal with, in this game the blades were in the vampire and the gaurd in the storm serpents. Revenant titans providing massive fire support and the wraithship dropping double pie plates of death just to cause some dramas during deployment really.

The Lost and the Damned Redux

Link to PDF: http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=26363

Unit Name	Description	Points
Cultist Coven	One Demagogue or Chaos Marine Aspiring Champion and eleven Cultists or Mutant units. Formation has Daemonic Pact. ADD – 6 Land Transports (60), Chaos Altar (150), 1 Technical (25)	460
Cultist Coven	One Demagogue or Chaos Marine Aspiring Champion and eleven Cultists or Mutant units. Formation has Daemonic Pact. ADD – 6 Land Transports (60), 1 Technical (25	310
Cultist Coven	One Demagogue or Chaos Marine Aspiring Champion and eleven Cultists or Mutant units. Formation has Daemonic Pact.	225
Zombie Infestation	3D6 Plage Zombie Units	175
Zombie Infestation	3D6 Plage Zombie Units	175
Plague Tower	1 Plague Tower	300
Plague Tower	1 Plague Tower	300
Fire Lord	Two Fire Lord Bombers	250
Doomwings	Three Doomwing Fighters	150
Hellfire Cannons	Four Hellfire Cannons	200
Hellfire Cannons	Four Hellfire Cannons	200
Daemon Pool	7 Lesser Daemons 2 Greater Daemons	105 100

A bit of a mixed bag but the basic principle is that you have two fast moving cultist formations who can summon daemons to support their assaults across the board and a third one held back as a blitzgaurd. Fire support comes from the plague towers who can do good damage to infantry and light vehicles with their BP barrage and the Hellfire cannons which offer long range macro battlecannon death. Two sets of planes gives the army the capasity to strike all over the place and the Doomwings are also a solid figher option to buff the quite depressing ground based AA options.



Deployment

I'll confess to not having a solid plan for this one. My build essentially works on the idea of getting solid fire support from the plague towers and hell cannons, doing some distracting with the zombies and taking ground with the cultist units. Like all the best plans this one lasted until the first shot...

The cult was spread from one end of the table to the other with a fairly symmetrical allocation of cultists, hellcanons and plague towers. The BTS cultist unit is the blob with an altar on my left. Opposing it the eldar have grouped up around their blitz and with a clear flanking force of revenants and storm serpent.

Waiting to be summoned in one form or another... The lesser daemons would be waiting a while!

Turn 1

Turn 1 starts very cagey, not confident of a good position the plague zombies stay in hiding and much of the Iyanden force is still holding off in the warp. In hindsight keeping the zombies in reserve feels like a mistake and I should have dropped them turn 1.

Iyanden win initiative and start with a Dragon ship killing a land transport and an infantryman from the BTS cultists followed by a few more casualties from the night spinners as I advanced.

The hellcannons on the left decided to advance through terrain to take revenge on said voidspinners... 3 of them didn't survive the trip and the last one missed... My leftmost plague tower advanced only to have 5DC stripped by the revenants who doubled to light it up... so far not so good!

Adding insult to injury a huge assault goes off on the cultists on my right who had advanced. A broken storm serpent delivered a unit of wraithgaurd who prepped the cultists ready for an air assault from the wraithblades which wiped the cultist unit out. The only redemption was the firestorm bombers sniping out the transport afterwards. What a mess.

This is a textbook example of a great engagment... pity it wasn't me attacking!

Turn 2

Plague zombies come down to surround the revenants and be annoying and potentially attack the scouts near the Eldar BTS. Sadly it wasn't to be as eldar once again stole the initiative. The plague zombies surrounding the revenants were quickly cut down and broken by the wraithgaurd and rangers but being fearless they planted themselves in and prepared to be as annoying as possible

In response the BTS cultist formation summons a lord of change who snipes out the middle storm serpent with its double macro shots. The plague zombies near the Eldar BTS happily engaged and wiped out the Eldar rangers in an impressive display of competitive brain eating.

Eldar Falcons zoom up and snipe the alter out of the BTS formation which gets sucked back into the warp on a crit followed by a retain with the sup com wraithgaurd formation emerging from the webway to challenge the lord of change to single combat, amazingly he survived it and the broken wraithgaurd fall back to a safer position.

Turn 3

Avatar pops up next to my cultist formation, Eldar win the strategy roll, only to fail to activate the wraithblades... twice. Sad day for the Eldar.

Plague tower siezes the opportunity to break the storm serpent in the middle and then a retain sees the right most cultists summon a bloodthirster and head straight for the revenant Titans. After 2 epic rounds of combat a revenant lay smoking but the cultists lost their nerve and fled.

The remaining wraithgaurd sustain on the plague tower taking it down to 3 wounds and the avatar follows up for an engagement reducing it to a single wound and broken.

I saw an opportunity to run for the enemy blitz and secure a win but a tragic 3/4 failed rolls for activation robbed me of my opportunity and we set up for turn 4....

After rally phase there's not a lot on the table, it's a plague tower, 2 sets of planes, 1 cultist unit and some plague zombies versus a storm serpent, 4 wraith guard and 3 wraith blades....

Turn 4

Eldar win the final initiative bid of the game and move in for the kill on the plague tower

Wraithblades clear the zombies and and the wraithgaurd bring down the tower with massed fire.

Bombers and fighters both fail to activate, one with a sup com so it comes to the zombies to clear the void spinners off the enemy blitz which they do! The win then comes down to the BTS cultist unit walking up to the uncontested enemy blitz.... guess what....

So net result was a VP count back and a score of

Eldar kill - 1385 Cultists kill - 1205

Conclusions

A damn close game which the cult could have taken out if not for some nuts failed activations in the last turn or 2. Most of the remaining Iyanden troops were broken but those wraith constructs are damn hard to finish off. Not a bad first go for the cult. Things I learnt this game:

Hellcannons are damn fragile... and clearly a massive target.

Cultists are good fodder but don't expect anything much else.

Plague towers are really good for all round FF support and flexibility but again a big target and they can't respond well to the big stuff which will be hitting them.

Bombers and planes are both good options... when they turn up!

I expected the bloodthirster to be the man of the match but since he doesn't do much when not in BC my final conclusion was that the Lord of Change was much more useful overall.

Plague zombies are great, such a pain for the enemy to deal with even if they will never actually achieve much else.

Lesser daemons - funnily I never summoned even one despite having invested in a bunch of them. I really need to work out how to use them or just drop them altogether for something else.